Germanic tribes

The Germanic tribes were a group of Indo-European peoples who originated in Scandinavia during the Bronze Age, moving south into Central Europe in around 1000 BC. During that time, they inhabited southern Sweden, Denmark, and northern Germany. Starting in the 2nd century BC, the Vandals, Gepids, and Goths migrated from southern Sweden, reaching the Rhine area by 100 BC and the Danube Basin by 1 AD. The Germanic tribes who settled in the west included the Marcomanni, Alemanni, Franks, Angles, and Saxons, while the eastern tribes included the Vandals, Gepids, Alans, Burgundians, Lombards, Ostrogoths, and Visigoths. The Germanic tribes began to threaten the Roman Republic during the 2nd century BC, when the Cimbri and Teutones invaded Italy and inflicted heavy defeats on the Romans before being decisively defeated by Gaius Marius at the Battle of Vercellae in 101 BC. In 58 BC, during the Gallic Wars, the Roman general Julius Caesar defeated the migrating Suebi at the Battle of Vosges. In 12 BC, Nero Claudius Drusus led a retaliatory campaign across the Rhine after a Roman legion was annihilated five years earlier, beginning a series of campaigns to conquer Germania. However, Roman expansion was halted at the Battle of Teutoburg Forest in 9 AD, and the Roman campaigns stopped in 16 AD, with further Roman incursions into Germania being solely punitive expeditions and not attempts at conquest. Germanic tribes began to settle along the Rhine and Danube rivers, and some became royal tutors and mercenaries for the Romans, while others warred with them. During the late 4th century, the westward expansion of the Huns pushed many Germanic tribes into the Western Roman Empire, and their vacated lands were filled by Slavs. The Western Roman Empire refused to let the Germans settle in their lands and become Roman citizens, leading to war with them. Ultimately, the Franks conquered what would now be France, the Visigoths conquered Spain, the Suebi conquered Portugal, the Vandals conquered North Africa (even sacking Rome), the Ostrogoths would settle in Italy after the fall of the Western Empire in 476 AD, and the Angles, Jutes, and Saxons conquered England. Ironically, many Germanic tribes adopted Roman customs and attempted to adopt Latin, leading to the development of the Romance languages of French, Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese as the Germanic tribes' attempts at speaking Latin. Many of the tribes adopted Christianity, and they created a number of Germanic kingdoms, of which Francia would gain a dominant position and later found the Holy Roman Empire. During the 11th century, the North Germans abandoned paganism and converted to Christianity, and the Germanic tribes became Western Christian civilizations.